Rob Eakin Triathlete

Race Report – Delta Triathlon

The race season is finally underway and it was a cold, windy, and rainy start. The weather required some quick morning problem solving like duct taping old socks over the toes of my bike shoes and taping gloves to my handlebars for the bike ride.

With a staggered start from slowest to fastest swimmers, I was one of the last swimmers to start (the idea of which I'm slowly getting comfortable). It was also a surreal experience lining up just in front of pros Mike Neill and Jasper Blake.

Compared to some of the horror stories I heard from others about their swim, mine was fairly uneventful. With nine swimmers per 25 m lane, things got pretty crowded for some racers but after a couple of laps I was the only one left in the lane. You would think this would make counting laps for the officials easier. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case.

As I came to the wall with one lap left I was looking for the board to tell me it was my last lap. Nothing. So I swam the next lap in uncertainty wondering if I had counted wrong. When I came the wall the next time, still nothing. So on I swam, pretty sure I should be done but still a little unsure. When I finished my next lap, still without any signal, I simply stopped and looked at the official. After a brief look at her clip board she said "oh, you're done". Out of the pool I climbed and with a glance at my watch I knew I had swam an extra lap with a time well over 12 minutes for "700" m.

But all you can do is put it behind you and refocus on what is left of the race. And refocus I did. The bike was basically a flat out and back twice which took you into a strong headwind on the way out and a strong tailwind on the way back. So I tried to work hard on the way out and let myself recover a little on the way back (letting my HR drop a couple bpm).

At the end of the 2nd lap I caught a glimpse of Jasper Blake behind me and realized that it didn't look as if he had gained anything on me (and I had even possibly put some time on him) and knew it had been a strong ride. In the end it turned out that he did get me by 14 seconds on the bike but it was still extremely rewarding to see that I could hold my own with some serious pros on the bike.

Heading out on the run, I knew I wanted to stay controlled for the first couple of km's and then build into the final km's. The plan seemed to work perfectly as at a couple of points I felt super strong but at the same time nice and relaxed. I finished the run in 18:39 which is by far my fastest 5k in a triathlon.

I would finish in 5th place overall in a time of 1:00:39. It is a little frustrating that without the extra swim lap, I could have met my goal of a sub 1 hour sprint this early in the season but considering I felt as though I had very little race fitness going into the race I'm very pleased with how the race went. It was nice to reinforce the belief that all the hard work over the winter does pay off eventually.

Congrats to Rob J. for his 4th place finish, just 4 seconds ahead of me, and Jeff M. for gutting out a spill on the bike to finish 13th. Nice early season results for the squad.

All in all a solid start to the race season. Up next: some bike racing at Race the Ridge this weekend.